Complete Prose Works / Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy

A wide-ranging prose collection of personal reminiscences, essays, lectures, and fragments that blend memoir, cultural criticism, and public commentary. The author recounts childhood and working years, urban and coastal scenes, and vivid hospital and battlefield impressions from the Civil War era. Interspersed are prefaces, literary critiques, and reflections on democracy, national character, and fellow writers, together with memorial pieces and responses to the death of a president. Forms vary from diary-like vignettes to formal addresses, creating a loose, reflective portrait that moves between intimate observation and broad social and artistic meditation.